On a flight from Milwaukee to Dallas earlier this week, a passenger reportedly tried to take an early exit by politely asking a flight attendant to open the door mid-flight — then forcing her out of the way and trying to open the door himself until fellow passengers restrained him with duct tape.
At some point during the flight, a passenger on American Airlines flight 1915 decided he needed to get out and that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. What seemed to start as a polite interaction got out of hand quickly, until the attempted door opener was restrained on his stomach for the duration of the flight. NBC 24 has quotes:
The man, according to the report, then tried to rush towards the door and the flight attendant was “hit hard” when bracing her arms out to block the door.
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Passengers told officials in the report they were able to duct tape his arms and legs and lay him on his stomach “safely holding him on the ground until the aircraft landed.”
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The flight attendant was taken to the hospital for treatment after she said her left wrist and neck were injured when the man “jumped on top of her to gain access” to the door, officials noted.
Despite the unnamed door-opener being Canadian, this story feels like a microcosm of the American experience. Someone is clearly having a mental health episode deserving of care — perhaps even a disconnect from reality triggered by the flight such as travel-induced psychosis — yet that episode has led them towards actions that would hurt those around them. Folks nearby, without proper training, have to take matters into their own hands with whatever tools are at their disposal. In this case, it was duct tape, but sometimes it can be as unkind as a gun.
It’s tough to argue what’s the right and wrong move in situations like this, because opening a plane door is a genuine risk — sure, it may not work due to the altitude and pressure differential, but are you sure you want to bank on that? On the flipside, you’ve taken a person in a mental health crisis and forced them to lie on their stomach with duct-taped limbs on an airplane. What’s that going to do to them?
The passengers on American Airlines flight 1915 likely did the best they could with the tools and information available to them — it’s tough to say that, in the same situation, you’d do anything different. It sure would be nice if we all had better information to work with, though. Planes can be bad enough without any duct tape involved.
